Finishing Well

I recently engaged in a very personal and meaningful ritual - my annual eve-of-the-hard-frost harvest. It is my chance to go out and love the plants I've tended so carefully one last time, and reap their final benefit to me for the season. It is a sad thing, in many ways, but not without its joys. Yes, I will miss the warm breeze and the feel of sun-baked soil under my toes as I picked ripe tomatoes from the garden for supper. But, I will not miss the sweat-dripping, head-pounding, mind-numbing monotony of pulling weed, after weed, after endless weed. Can I get an amen on that?

This harvest, ostensibly, is simply an act of salvaging what little good is left on that patch of dirt before it gets abandoned. In the past, that is exactly how I've thought of it. This year, however, I'm trying to be more contemplative. (Apparently I am going to get in touch with my inner philosopher in my thirties. Who knew?) Though harvest is about salvaging what is useful, it is also a time to reflect. I made sure to focus, as I picked the last few peppers and tough-skinned eggplant, at how abundant our garden had been this year, how nicely it looked because I took the time to keep it maintained, and how many happy hours it had provided me. I guess you could say that the ritual this time was focused equally as much on the figurative fruits my little plot had provided in life, as it was on the literal ones it had provided for my table.

More than that, however - beyond living in the glorious abundance of that moment, or reflecting on the goodness and benefit of the many months prior -  I also turned my thoughts to the future. Most importantly, I turned my efforts to it as well. You see, in the past I have never put my garden to bed well. Like a thief fleeing from the scene of a crime , I tended to pluck my goodies and run for the hills, leaving the fallout of tangled vines and withered weeds to be worried about the following spring. This year, I left only a clean, bare patch of dirt behind in order that I might be productive next spring when life is bursting forth, rather than scrambling to prepare.

Yes, my garden has been good to me. I planted peppers and egg plants, and harvested wisdom and life lessons. Funny how it works that way, isn't it? Perhaps there are more similarities than we care to admit between finishing a growing season well in your garden, and finishing a growing season well in your life. Babies grow up. Friends move away. Jobs come and go. Relationships change. I don't claim to know all the answers, of course (far from it!), but maybe some of the lessons I learned while scratching around in the dirt this year might be useful as you face your own seasons of life. For example:

This year, I chose not to close my eyes to the inevitable change that the chilly air around me signaled, because the warmth of my eagerly-wished-for sunshine cannot protect me from the frost.  I chose to recognize that sometimes you have to clear things out of your life in order to leave clean and fertile soil for something new to grow - even if those things have been fruitful for you in the past. And, though the freeze may have robbed my garden of the chance for any further growth this season, it certainly doesn't mean that it did the same for me. After all - the end of one season always signals the beginning of another. I'd say, all in all, it's been a good harvest, and I'm very grateful for the fruitfulness it has provided in my life.

Autumn!

Of all the equinoxes, the autumnal really is my favorite, by far. (Ok - I know. There are only two equinoxes, but it sounded so good in my head that I just had to give that opening the chance to live, in black and white, for at least one brilliant, blazing moment.) It's true, though. Fall is my favorite time of year. Granted, there are some parts of fall that I could do without; namely raking, football, and the impending doom of winter. The last one is especially heinous, but I've chosen to overlook it and maintain Autumn as the season I look forward to most of all anyway.

What is it about this glorious time of year that is so refreshing? I love the crisp air and the cool evenings. After a summer of humidity so thick you can chop it with a cleaver, it's nice to be able to sit outside and declare casually, "You know - it's a bit chilly out tonight. I think I might need a sweater." The best part, of course, is that you never actually get up and go and get said sweater, opting instead to be chilly just for the novelty of it. The thrum of the cicadas is replaced by the hum of the combines, their lights burning away, late into the night, in ever smaller circles on distant, hilltop fields. The heady scent of chlorophyll and pollen is replaced by the more demure aromas of dusty apples and (unfortunately) heavy-laden ragweed plants. The sunsets are softer. The pace of life slower, and there is an expectation of the end in the air. Ahhh - the end! That, really, is what I love most of all about Fall.

You see - I am a starter. If ever you should find me grinning with a group of friends in a jail cell, you will know that whatever plan got us there was probably hatched by me. I am always leaping before I look. Getting my cart before the horse. Counting my chickens before they hatch, and whatever other idiom applies to people who don't have the sense to stop and think a moment before tearing off down the road toward some new adventure. I guess the way I see it is that Autumn is God's annual loud-speaker announcement to me that it is alright to stop. Cease. Desist. Rest - even in the middle of a project. The gentle droop of my tomato plants and the dry rustle in the corn fields is not a signal to God to work harder, to do more, to try one last thing to bring forth fruitfulness in the earth. When fall comes, all things find closure - from the tired tomatoes, to the worn corn plants, to the budding weeds just staring to grow in the path. In His goodness, God truly did ordain a time to plant, and a time to reap.

So, fall is when I take a step back from the hundreds of little projects that I have set before myself, and take time to reflect. What things in my life have proven fruitful and deserve, now, to have their rest? What seeds and new things have I been busily collecting, sorting, storing, preparing, that now I should plant and walk away from for a season? What budding pet undertaking is it time to acknowledge as a weed in my path and let it go, promising and exciting though it may be? What things should I let die away in order to put my energy into the vital roots that must go deep if I am to survive the winter ahead?

It was chilly this evening as I walked out to shut my hens in for the night and check on the baby chicks, huddled under their heat lamp. On the way past my garden I noted that the annuals seemed to be the saddest of all the plants left. Their vigor and energy and ability to always set on a new fruit or stem seems to have left them, and they seem left startled to have come to the end of themselves and their own abilities and desires. God, I pray that I might not just be a busy annual. The biennials, likewise, are despondent. There is a hint of desperation in the last growing season of these two-year wonders. Wise enough to conserve for one winter, they fail to plan for any more, and end up all used up by their own initiative and pursuit of desired outcomes. Lord, let me be more than a short-lived burn out in your garden. It is only the perennials who maintain a hint of dignity and a promise of future usefulness this time of year. To be sure, they are tired like all the others, but rather than dreading the killing frost, they welcome it as a signal to stop their labors and take their rest. In that rest will come renewal, and with it is the assurance of  season upon season upon season of new starts and fresh tasks ahead. Lord, grant that I may learn the Autumn lessons you labor to teach me, so I can be rooted and find my rest in you and be perennially fruitful for your glory.

Canning

Tomorrow I am going to introduce my dear, life-long friend to the mystery and alchemy of canning. Just like the 'scientists' of yore who labored over bubbling pots and boiling beakers, I like to think of canning as a mystical art form. The perfect beauty and bounty of summertime being distilled and preserved forever (or at least a year or two) - making it possible to taste June in January, sunshine in snowstorms, green growth in grey skies.

I am (don't tell!) actually pretty new to canning. I put my first pears and peaches into jars just a few years ago - busily humming away late into the night, paring knife flashing, canner steaming on the stovetop. I was hooked from the first 'pop' of a sealed jar. My mom canned some when I was a kid, as did her mother before her.  I have vague but comfortable memories of it. I like to think that this, like so many other things I do, is a return to something important from my heritage - something I have grown up enough to now be proud of.

Last summer my daughter would sneak upstairs and sit on the counter next to me as I worked. It was late, and she should have been in bed, but I couldn't help but feel, deep in my bones, that it was more important for her to be putting in the memories of canning as I put the peaches in the jars than it was for her to get enough sleep - at least for that night. So, we canned together. I washed the fruit, blanched it, and squished the skins off, the sink turning a murky pink color. I let her halve the peaches and remove the pits. We both had juice dribbling down our chins and off our elbows, nightgowns smudged and damp. It was well past midnight before the last jar sealed and we went to bed. I don't remember what we said, but I know it was good. Surrounded by fresh fruit and jars and history and heritage as we were - how could it not have been wonderful?

I know we're staring off small - just a few pints of homemade salsa - but I hope my friend gets hooked on canning, just like I did. Not only because I want someone I can share recipes with and trade produce with and ask to borrow a jar lifer or a canning funnel from once in a while, but because I want the people I love to get the very best from life. And, I can't imagine anything better than that late night with my daughter, the satisfaction of a cupboard full of gleaming jars, and knowing that you have been a part of something important from the past, and are making it possible for that something important to continue in the future.

Besides - it means I'll get to spend a whole afternoon in the kitchen with my dear, life-long friend and six children, watching our progress wide-eyed and eagerly, and grinning in delight when they hear the jars seal. What could be better than that?

Deconstructing Squash

I'm on a mission at my house... a mission to deconstruct squash. I want to debunk the stereotypes, remove the mystery, take away the stigma. My husband isn't going for it. He's not a squash guy. I must give him credit, however - at least he tried it at supper tonight. Whatever it is that he's got against it, at least I know it's not without reason.
I, on the other hand, love squash. I love its heft, its color, its potential. I love the fact that there are a million recipes out there for each bountiful, beautiful squash. Some of them are hearty and homey, like Baked Acorn Squash with Bacon, or Butternut Squash with Mustard Greens. These are the recipes that sustained humanity for centuries. You can't take a bite without sensing in your soul that someone, somewhere once made this in a squatty shelter while humming a song that had been passed down for generations.

Nowadays, of course, even the humblest of ingredients are being gussied up, brought blinkingly into the spotlight, and called chic.A quick search on the Food Network website will bring you all sorts of fancy recipes - Butternut Squash and Vanilla Risotto, Roasted Acorn Squash with Gorgonzola Pizza, Rigatoni with Squash and Prawns. It's like dressing up the local honky-tonk star and putting her onstage in Vegas. All the big-name chefs and TV personalities are doing it, and, frankly, I salute them for it. Whatever it takes to bring the lowly squash into its own is ok by me.

Consider this: Most winter squash have a low glycemic index, a high 'satiety factor' (they make you feel full),  almost all of the usual vitamins and minerals in sizeable and balanced quantities, are very low in fat, and contain all of the 9 amino acids (which, as we learned in high school, are the building blocks for a healthy body). Plus, they come in such oddly-named varieties as Crookneck, Turk's Turban, Pattypan, Delicata, Indian Bitter Melon, Eight Ball, Gooseneck, Curshaw, Cheese Wheels... the list goes on and on.

Clearly, I have done a little research for this blog entry. (While it's true that my head is filled with useless knowledge, this happened to be some that I wasn't previously lugging around.) I think I've finally found the one thing that will convince my husband to like squash: pumpkin pie. Turns out, most canned pumpkin pie filling that you buy isn't really 100% pumpkin after all. It's really a mixture of some pumpkin, and squash! (This really is a misnomer, since pumpkins are actually relatives of the squash.) Yep - all those folks at Thanksgiving who turn up their noses at the squash dishes brought by Aunt Herriot, but then turn around and enthusiastically go back for seconds on punkin pie are really showcasing their lack of knowledge and discernment in the pie-hole department.

Truth be told, I can hardly blame them for their low-class palate. Despite all my fancy talk and recipe searching, I almost always fall back on the same method of cooking up a mess of squash - bake it with a little butter and brown sugar. I suppose that this is much the same method that they make that faux pumpkin pie, albeit with a hint of sugar and a lot more pureeing.  I have never yet thought to get out the whipped cream for my mashed squash - perhaps I'll have to give it a try. I now have the facts to quote you about the health benefits of squash, and the recipes to showcase just what a sophisticated cook I am for knowing how to use such an 'in-style' ingredient, but the reason I love squash is much more simple. I connect with that woman in her squatty shelter. I, too, hum when I'm hacking, sing when I'm slicing, just like she did. (Ok - I tend to sing Folk ballads from the 60's, but the idea is the same.) There's something universal, sustaining, autumnal, and comforting about a good, old, reliable squash. That's what I'm into. That's what I'm about.

Next time - perhaps we'll deconstruct a Brussel Sprout. It's bound to be less educational, but much more entertaining...

Day One

I have a blog! I suppose this makes me like the thousands and thousands of others who have crept into the digital age- some reluctantly (testing with their big toes first), and others headlong and with a joyous 'whoop.' I think I fit somewhere in the middle. I will eventually dunk my head beneath the surface and fully commit, but for now I'm not far from my towel.

I harvested the last of my garden's abundance today. It's bittersweet, to be honest. I don't like walking past the sunken and nodding heads of the plants I nursed from infancy, but it's also hard to finally pull them up and commit them to the ground again. Ashes to ashes, compost to compost. Plus, as much as I love the produce (prepare for misplaced whining) I do not really have time to wash, cut, freeze, dehydrate, store, label, and otherwise fuss with anything else right now. I often wonder how many thousands of dollars in prime produce I have let go to waste for lack of gumption. Do I make up for all that when I boil chicken carcasses, literally getting all the good (right down to the marrow!) from each one? At least THERE I am not wasteful...

Anyway, my chickens got most of the good stuff out of the garden this year. In case you weren't aware, a dozen hens will jump a knee-high garden fence and devour tomatoes like they were some exotic delicacy. Then again, I guess compared to commercial chicken feed, they are. I am banking on tomato-flavored chicken meat come butchering time - think 'pre-marinating.' Should this method prove successful, I will plant mint in the pasture with the lambs first thing in the Spring.

We are expecting our first hard frost tonight, with possible snow in the forecast this week. The moon is waning, but still huge in the sky. I believe it is brighter on those nights when I can see my breath. The stars shine best in the cold, too, as if having to suffer a bit to stand and enjoy them makes them all the more enjoyable.

I am almost ready to go to bed. There is a part of me that wants to fret over having to turn on the heat so soon in the season. It wants to worry over the cost of coal and which of the girls will need a new winter coat. It wants to review all the things left to do before the cold sets in in earnest.

I think the real part of me (the best of me), knows, however, that my table full of freshly-picked produce means something far more significant than any worry I might have. It means that I truly don't have to fear for my household... Clothed in scarlet (or hand-me-down coats), we will be safe. We will be fed. We will be warmed. We will have love.

Plus, how can I worry over winter woes, when I am at least knee-deep in this new adventure? Who says we can't find our own ways to hold on to summer, even if only metaphorically?